A Missouri ballot initiative could harm pro-life efforts, New Taliban law greatly restricts women; Thank you, God, for tomorrow

Good News for Today

A Missouri ballot initiative to enshrine abortion and contraceptive rights into the state constitution would repeal all laws regulating such reproductive technologies as human cloning and in vitro fertilization for stem cell research, the Thomas More Society said in a lawsuit challenging Amendment 3.

Missouri Attorney General John Ashcroft, a pro-life Republican, violated state and constitutional law by not listing with the ballot initiative the laws it would repeal, and by certifying a ballot initiative that covers more than one subject, Thomas More Society Senior Counsel Mary Catherine Martin told Baptist Press.

As preborn life is increasingly challenged by state ballot initiatives, Martin said the national law firm is looking at ballot initiatives in other states to check their alignment with state laws. Currently, initiatives are on the ballots in nine other states.

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A new Taliban law restricting the rights of women even further has led to calls for prayer from Arabic church leaders as well as Afghans who have fled in recent years.

“These women are victims,” said Raid Al Safadi, pastor of Arabic Baptist Church of San Antonio, Texas. “Islamic law and Sharia law deal with them as slaves, something that is owned and not as a human being.”

The “Law on the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice” was adopted last week in Afghanistan. Among other things, it mandates women wear clothing that covers their entire bodies, including their faces. It also bans their voices being heard in public and adds more restrictions to moving about without being accompanied by a male relative.

Al Safadi encourages believers to pray for the Afghanis and ask God to work despite the Taliban to “establish His kingdom in Afghanistan for His people.”

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Union University professor Ray Van Neste writes, “When our youngest, Timothy, was 4 years old he often eagerly asked to say the blessing. His prayers developed, of course, moving first from unintelligible to intelligible and then adding and substituting topics. At one point a new item began appearing in his prayers. He began, in his list of things for which he gave thanks, saying, “Thank you for tomorrow.”

This simple sentence led the professor to remembers, “For tomorrow is already promised to all those who are in Christ. This tomorrow may occur in this life or the next, but it is sure. And no matter what hardship tomorrow may bring, God is there. To give thanks for what God is yet to do is to act in faith.”

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